The match between Poland and Germany officially opened the men’s volleyball season. Although it was a social meeting, it was full of emotions and twists. Nikola Grbic tested many of his charges, gave a chance to young people, although the result will not please him.
On May 25, the Polish men’s volleyball team officially started the 2023 season. On this day, a friendly match with Germany took place. However, Spodek in Katowice was missing several of the great stars of the Biala Cervoń team, most of whom are still resting after tough league games. As a result, such players as Grzegorz Lomacz, Mateusz Benek, Karol Klos and Artur Salpuk appeared in the starting lineup. That is, either a full-time reserve, or players returning to the team after a break.
The match between Poland and Germany started badly
In the first set, Michal Viniarczyk’s wards started a little better. This was mainly the result of counterattacks by our western neighbors after an insufficiently productive game. The Germans were ahead by about three points for a long time, but this is not surprising, given how often we made mistakes, even simple ones, in communication. It was clear that we were playing with a very experimental line-up.
The best of the whole group were Salpuk and young Dulsky. These two gave us hope for a good result in the first set, which we still lost 21.
Impressive comeback in the second set of the match between Poland and Germany
Player Projekt Warszawa took on a lot of responsibility early in the second game, although the Poles lacked accuracy in the game. As a result, our attacking volleyball players quite often had to hit from unprepared positions. On the other side of the grid, such improvisation was not visible, and Rers took advantage of our mistakes especially cruelly. Weber, on the other hand, gave us a lot of trouble when serving.
We had a moment when we managed to catch up and level the score, but then it quickly became 13:17. When Grbic asked for a break at that moment, it was hard to be surprised at his words. “Gentlemen, you are too sweet today. We need more power, he said.
Only at the end of the set was she released. Klos scored with a block, Semenuk with an ace, and this gave us hope, and Salpuk hit a block, and we had 24:24. For the first time we took the lead after Butrin’s ace, whose delivery also allowed us to win 26:24 and bring it to a draw.
The successful series of white-red continued
Sawicki and Poręba made good substitutions in the beginning, and as the Poles also significantly improved their serve, the Germans were often thrown out of the net. A more daring game paid off, because this time it was Grbic’s wards who caught the right rhythm and jumped to three “points”, and then to six.
If not for single mistakes and a slightly better game in the block of the aforementioned Savitsky, Byalo-Chervoni would probably have settled the third part of the fight faster. Having found himself in an unpleasant situation, our coach sent Yakub Gavrilyuk, who was recognized as the greatest discovery of the past PlusLiga season, into battle. However, the Libero moved into the position of the receiver to improve this element. A moment later, Semenyuk returned to the court. These decisions paid off, we won 19 and took a 2-1 lead.
Tie-break in the match between Poland and Germany
Unfortunately, in the fourth set, our western neighbors woke up and returned to a more aggressive attacking game. The Poles were not ready for such a turn of events, so they performed poorly at the party, and the connection was once again interrupted. During the break, with the score at 12:16, Nikola Grbic had a lot of comments about his players. Not surprisingly, he confirmed the final score of 17:25 in this part of the skirmish.
The fans gathered at the Spodek Arena and watched the tie-break in front of the TVs, in which Michal Winiarski’s team started the competition better again. It got hot, but at the critical moment, the Komenda-Sawicki duo performed well. Unfortunately, the security was a little worse, so the opponents of Byalo-Chervoni again took the lead 9:7. With the score 12:9 for the Germans, Grbic tried to shake up the team on the touchline. “We’ve been training for three weeks now,” he shouted, referring to the inefficient block. He managed to stimulate Dulski or Poremba for this, we jumped at 13:14, although the fate of the tie-break could no longer be changed. So we lost 2-3.
Source: Wprost
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